Essential weekend reading, including the latest Stripe funding round. Image: GaudiLab/Shutterstock
From the Collison brothers’ latest $9bn valuation to Huawei finding Dublin picture perfect for a new R&D centre, we cover all the important news in the sci-tech world this week.
1. Irish brothers’ fintech start-up Stripe is now worth $9bn
Stripe, the payments company set up in the US by Irish brothers Patrick and John Collison, is now worth $9.2bn, following a new funding round.
2. Prof Brian MacCraith: Gender imbalance in STEM is unacceptable
Following the publishing of a new three-year report into Ireland’s current state of play when it comes to STEM education, Prof Brian MacCraith has called the existing gender imbalance ‘unacceptable’.
3. Revealed: Huawei to create 60 new video R&D jobs in Dublin
Chinese telecoms hardware and systems giant Huawei is to hire about 60 people in Dublin in the next year in the area of video research.
4. Will Black Friday drive another nail into the coffin of Irish retail?
It is Black Friday and across the world – well, in the US especially – people who yesterday gave thanks for everything they have, will today want more. But will Black Friday and next week’s Cyber Monday sound a death knell for retailers who aren’t online?
5. Intel Ireland hoping to secure $4bn chip plant from foreign competition
Intel Ireland is hoping to prevent a new $4bn chip manufacturing facility go to another country, as it seeks new planning permission with Kildare County Council.
6. The role of science journalism in an age of denial
Pulitzer prize-winning author Deborah Blum will talk in Dublin next month about some of the challenges facing science journalism. Claire O’Connell caught up with her ahead of her visit.
7. Brent Pope: Research is vital in the field of mental health
Rugby pundit Brent Pope talks about the stigma surrounding the issue of mental health and why continuous research is important to understand what we can about the complexities of the human mind.
8. Google is discreetly warning journalists they are being cyberattacked
Prominent journalists and professors across the globe are finding a worrying message popping up on their screen from Google, warning them that their accounts might be under attack from government entities.
9. ‘Vicious circle’ of climate change is rapidly melting the Arctic at record level
New research into the effects of climate change on the Arctic has returned some shocking results, which reveal that a “vicious circle” of climate change is melting the ice at an unprecedented scale.
10. Bletchley Park will be home to codebreakers again in 2018
Having been saved from the brink of demolition, Bletchley Park is to be a codebreaker hub once again, as a cybersecurity group announces its plans to open a new centre there in 2018.
